Perhaps it is because their baseball caps are all too tight, but the police have this delusion that this debate is all about them, their numbers and conditions.

It is not. It is about the people they have failed.

I will cite some well-known examples, which cannot be blamed on the mild spending cuts which have slightly reduced police numbers from their historic peak around ten years ago.

The first is that of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Frankie, who had severe learning difficulties and became a target for a gang of louts in their Leicestershire village.

Horribly, Fiona and Frankie were not safe in their own home, where they endured jeering sieges in which their house was pelted with eggs and flour.

Their neighbours, understandably terrified that these feral persecutors would turn on them, knew all too well that law and authority were far away, and stayed out of it.

Fiona and her daughter endured this hell on earth for ten years, during which they appealed at least 27 times for police help. None came.

So one day Fiona sank into a despair so complete that she went out and burned herself and her daughter to death in their small car.

Then there was Garry Newlove, who foolishly assumed that this was still an orderly, peaceful country. He challenged a group of youths outside his Warrington house.

He thought one of them had vandalised his wife’s car. The youths promptly kicked him to death, laughing as they did so.

More recently there was Richard Osborn-Brooks, who was immediately arrested after he killed one of two burglars while defending his home and his wife from a late-night break-in.

The police eventually let him go, but it is their rotten instincts I am interested in.

Several things emerge from these cases.

One is that the police are very bad at responding to appeals for help from the weak.

The second is that their growing absence from the streets has made wrongdoers confident and also made the law-abiding fearful.

There simply should not be gangs of louts hanging around anywhere in the streets of a country with 120,000 police officers.

The third is that the police are increasingly neutral between the criminal and his victim.

Marinated for years in a sauce of Left-wing rubbish about crime being caused by poverty and suffering, not to mention the other rubbish about hate crimes, they simply do not – as we would do – side with the man who has had his home violated and tried to defend it.

They treat such a man as if he were a criminal. We know about their reluctance to investigate burglaries, not surprising when this crime is now out of control.

But even worse is their fashionable, inexcusable, lazy and stupid decision to ignore the law against marijuana possession.

I suspect that a very high proportion of the violence they then struggle to deal with is committed by young men who have destroyed their mental health by smoking marijuana.

If the drug laws were properly enforced, there would be far less violence.

Any minute now some police apologist will tell me that I don’t sympathise with them enough, and should go on what is laughingly called a ‘patrol’ with them.

Look, I have been on such patrols. That is exactly why I know they are useless.

What the police do is to wait for crime to happen, and then rush noisily to the scene.

I will say it again and again until it sinks in. A police officer is very little use after a crime has been committed.

He cannot unburgle you, unmug or unstab you. That is why I am completely unimpressed by the National Police Chiefs Council boss Sara Thornton trying to curry favour with the public by saying it is better to investigate burglaries than hate crimes.

A burglary is a horror and a misery which can ruin a person’s life. Investigation won’t make that better.

What we want is to see burglaries and disorder prevented by proper, regular police foot patrols, which worked just fine until the liberals abolished them.

When New Labour came into power in 1997, MI5’s huge files on Left-wing subversion were destroyed, a decision which greatly suited the many covert ex-Marxists in the Blair hierarchy.

This was quickly followed by a politically correct inquisition which transformed the Security Service into a nest of fashionable liberalism.

It was supposed to concentrate on way-out Islamists. But now we learn that it is to ‘take the lead in combating Right-wing terrorism’.

‘What is that?’ you may well ask.

The killer of Jo Cox MP, conveniently identified by the authorities as an extremist, was plainly mentally ill and had no serious politics.

And Britain’s various white supremacist hooligans, while nasty, are not really a threat to the state.

But I reckon these minor, isolated cases will form the excuse for surveillance, and perhaps worse, of anyone more conservative than the Tory Party.

It gives me the shivers.

The Blairite spite that reduced our Queen to tears

A new biography of Prince Charles notes his justified grief at the foolish decision to lay up the Royal Yacht Britannia, and not to replace her.

Like anyone, he can make a reasoned case for that lovely ship’s huge pulling power, and the way she could be used to enhance our political influence and commercial success.

But the Blairites were not being rational when they did this. They were unable openly to attack the monarchy, though deep down they have despised it for years.

They were making a spiteful, deliberate and highly emotive signal to the cultural revolutionaries whose cause they served.

At a key speech to Labour activists in Stevenage on the eve of his 1997 victory, barely reported, the Blair creature got the loudest cheer of the night by attacking the supposed expense of a new yacht, small change compared with the giant spending debauch he was even then planning.

They retired Britannia because, in the end, they hope to get rid of the Crown, which they rightly see as an obstacle to their plans for a politically correct Utopia.

*******

And still the emotive campaign for ‘medical marijuana’ continues, quietly backed by people whose real motive is to legalise the drug for commercial sale and general use. Any real expert will tell you that the evidence of its effectiveness is very thin. And I confidently predict that, if the legalisers win, you will never hear another peep about it.

&&&&&&&&

My new and dangerous book , 'The Phoney Victory', has sold thousands despite an almost total boycott by the book review mafia, and hardly any display in bookshops. Find out why .

'Short Breaks in Mordor', a collection of my articles from places you need to know about but probably do n't want to visit (E.g. N.Korea, Sinkiang, DR Congo, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Sevastopol, Detroit) is now at last available as a paperback, here

https://amzn.to/2R2LaYn

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down

Share this article:

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Alan Thomas
Governments have meddled with all sorts of things that they needn't have. The police for one.
Meddling when my children were at school.
I read today that the use of Capitals might cause anxiety in students.
So funny because in the 80's when my oldest daughter showed me work, there were no corrections on capitals and spelling.
I know you will know, I have repeated it on here a good few times, that one of the younger new intake of teachers, their form teacher told me. "Imagination was key"
It's being going on that long.
I know I make a fair few mistakes on here, but I'm not in class, my eyes are older and my head is full for things I need to undertake.
I'm helping someone at the moment. I think ink of myself as quite articulate, but I really can see how frustrated the less capable are, if they don't have someone to support them and with literacy levels low fall through the system.
I read that white working class boys are being left behind, I think many black ones to personally.
Perhaps, if we went back to my old fashioned school days of assemblies, right and wrong to get ready for the school day. Orderly lines, no talking in corridors, respect when teachers came in.
We did not have dress down days, paying money to school for the privilege. Nor expensive school trips with pressure on working class parents purses. Nor disco days, for Halloween trick or treating, or whatever.
We had the Harvest festival where we brought a few things, it added up and then the stuff went to older folk.
Nativity. A few old sheets, a tea cloth and someone's doll. Carols.
I can remember when Labour were in it all went very sensitive, where it hadn't before.
You know where the councils spent hundreds of pound putting languages on forms.
I'm a bit more of an experienced grandma than some of my friends. I'm talking in the mid 2000's when Nativity went all eco and Winterval and even Blues Brothers on stage.
I've watched the creep.
My poor neighbours have to make a sarcophagus for an 8 year old, while mum is otherwise engaged. Us grandparents have and are picking up working parents time they haven't got. Learning about Egyptians.
My geography teacher bought his Egypt holiday slides of pyramids in, but we did a heck of a lot of written work I did that in secondary and didn't have much homework before that at Primary.
Spelling we did have. Lots of writing in class. I read to my teacher and did not go up a book until we had mastered that properly.
There's been a huge shift in parent attitude and I blame some of that on the 80's education I saw and the liberal attitude toward discipline and the young they are passing that onto.
My parents and schools old values, to the same for me and then when I was a parent of teens, school and society meddled and basically it's a bit of a mess.

Vikkib
Your comment about you worries of the extension of broadband and younger influence have been my concerns too.
I too can remember when free computers were handed out. It was my youngest grandson's time to ensure even less well off families had one.
Of course what I thought might happen, I heard was.
Homes without computers, were taking off child safety to make sure certain sites weren't accessed and it was a nice little free gift for the adults!
What did the government think was going to happen?
Not thinking through the downsides and worst behaviour in people.
If only they had stuck to traditional schooling, not allowed I phones in school, then responsible parents would have had more control over content seen.
The next problem is trying to get parents to see that giving them a phone is actually causing them to change their behaviour.
I see the anxiousness it causes.
They need weaning away.
Trouble is for little ones, their parents are buying them tablets and are helping this influence and not heeding their own parent's warnings.
Then children's parents parents, many if tgem, not all end up trying to undo damage by putting the darn things out of reach.
I know myself, how young love interaction and traditional things and forget about gadgets.

Mrs B, "Do you know little ones are finding times tables hard. My neighbour has young grandchild at school and it despairs me at how education is going."

Me too! When I was at school, I also found times tables difficult being slightly dyslexic. In fact I found writing in a straight line on a blank page difficult too! But, I *had* to learn. My parents weren't trying to have me labelled 'special needs' or do anything else to allow me to get out of working that bit harder than other children did! I was more likely to get a thrashing if I didn't, so I did!

I honestly despair seeing briefly this morning on the politics program,all this nonsense about *so* many children who are behaving badly through lack of discipline being shoved onto special needs lists, when for the most part, they need some firm parenting and schooling. You can pretty much see where they are heading in life if they are led to believe that they have a God given excuse for all their short comings for ever. It's tragic.

I must admit I find your multi-comment style of submitting posts rather difficult to follow at times. I certainly did not spot any response as to the question of parental responsibility in respect of the home use of computers.

One of the many problems that teachers face, or so my ex-head-of year daughter, now junior school problem solver in-chief (hope you follow that mouthful) tells me, is that the government is forever changing what is termed best practice, causing frequent retraining for many teachers when teacher levels are already below agreed numbers.
She also spends much time dealing with difficult parents... and attending tribunals involving the dismissal of non-performing teachers struggling to cope with difficult children or difficult parent...or both!

Oh Alan Thomas
You just wait until the tills go down and see the frightened look of having to add up.
Quick old fashionrd adding up, pricing items, means the old memory keeps working.
Working out change and placing it in the hand counting it out, not being lazy.
It's a skill that keeps the brain sharp.

Or the spell check not work!
So used to the spell check they don't have dictionary skill to know what the word corrected means!
Appear brainier than they are.
Didn't touch a key board until I went to college and we learnt typing to music, another brain stimulator. Rote like the nursery rhymes.
Do you know little ones are finding times tables hard. My neighbour has young grandchild at school and it despairs me at how education is going.
Learning to do adding up in such a way that hinders quick totting up in head.
Plenty if time to spend on Halloween discos.
We just went to school to learn.

Computer skills, basic or otherwise, are here to stay it seems. Even for lower paid jobs such as check out staff in shops, a minimum level of ability is required. Indeed, the only jobs in my local supermarket for staff who don't have basis skills would probably be the trolley stackers and cleaners.

Just imagine the outrage from parents if schools did not provide the basic training in skills that are essential to get a job, be that car mechanic or the receptionist in the dental surgery. What the kids get up to at home is down to parents...

Mrs B
You often talk about young people glued to screens, computers, tv, violent games etc and I agree. It's very bad for young minds. As children, we were always outside and TV was limited. I admit, we were privileged, we had wonderful grounds and land etc and no excuse to be inside.

But I remember when my children were of school age, there was a government push to get *all* children onto computers and the Internet. There were even free computers from the local authority if you were fast enough to grab them. I always thought it was a strange use of public money.

Cameron promised fast broadband in rural communities but I think there was always an agenda behind it, designed to get ever younger children used to spending hours and hours at a computer, ensnaring them and thereby being able to influence them as they grew up - under the state's influence for the rest of their lives. No longer taught to think critically for themselves, they are just sponges for any messages governments wish delivered.

We now have Twitter with thousands of people engaged in numerous topics, all of which the government can use to test the waters of public feeling, some public feeling at least and a good way to get your message across too.

There are many people now who largely live their lives through 'social media', constantly checking to see if other people are remotely interested in them (and hugely disappointed if they aren't) and sharing every intimate part of their lives which ought to remain private, dangerously courting unwelcome attention whether from wierd strangers or employers and the authorities. I'm sure the government cannot believe their luck. It could not have turned out better for them with people 'sharing' so much information all available for a government of any unwelcome shade in the future.

The old chestnut of 'I'm not doing anything wrong, I need not be afraid' will pale against an almighty state with its ever increasing raft of new laws.

No wonder they are happy to concrete over the countryside. We are becoming a nation of ' couch potatoes' (an apt American expression) looking at screens and being influenced.

Alan Thomas
That's why my generation are trying to tell it, "As it is".
Do you know that talking to others around my age, that it seems we now have specially designed forks and pens etc,. becuase children are having a problem at school?
A rise in S.E.N. special needs children.
Whose not putting the effort in to showing and teaching to hold knives and forks and pencils. Standard stuff in my 70's parenting days.
Whose giving young tablets and phones, where they are adept at the buttons, but can't do the basics?
Whose popping a disposable nappy on, instead of spending time on getting young clean?
Whose teaching young that they can have what they want, stay up when they want and that nice card out of the hole in the wall will pay?
Whose telling them that teacher is wrong becuase he won't let them go to school with a sprayed on skirt or trousers?
Cue obligatory sad face photo in the press.
Whose giving them the phone to compare tinted filter photos with others and feel they don't make the grade and their life isn't exciting?....
I think we have plenty of fallout from this to come.
So I agree, in ten years from now if things don't improve, they will get worse!

Mrs B, I do agree with you in all your points. I think a lot of the problem is the increasing way the state has encroached on parents responsibility in the upbringing of their own children. It undermines parents and in some cases lets them off the hook. The Left have managed to convince us that there aren't really any bad people as its all about their tragic upbringing and you can't really punish people once you take that view. Plus, parents, now savvy and well appraised of the (now sympathetic) attitude of the state, go to endless lengths to have their children certified with mental problems (ADHD etc) which further absolves them from any blame in their children's bad behaviour.
We need a change in attitude and I don't think this will happen until things get a lot worse and people get sick of state nannying and excuses for why we have feral gangs running amok more than we do already.

Alan
Firstly. "The all encompassing left", really ought to have cottoned on to the absolute mess they have made of things since hijacking what were far more successful societies of the past. But still they persist with their agendas and things have gone very far down hill on their watch.

And it wasn't that, "those who treat their pets in an extreme manner." It was about a sustained attack on an old man, and his dog who tried to protect his master. I think that should be viewed with the contempt it deserves should these people ever be brought to account for what they did. But that's my view, for the way in which people treat animals, says a lot about a society or country.

With respect, I have no dispute with the many issues that you have listed here for many years.

What I have not seen are any serious plans to address such issues. Perhaps when those in government have tackled, or attempted to tackle, present problems facing the country we might see some rethinking in both education and social issues. I have heard whispers concerning an increase in police numbers and a possible return to 'beat policing', but, in my view, that is unlikely to have much immediate effect. Indeed, with so many new forms of crime that have arrived in recent years, and are forecast to increase at an ever faster rate, I would suggest that ten years from now the situation will look just as bleak.

Vikki b
I feel very sorry for young people who live in some pretty dire family situations and d who are basically, " dragged up" , which used to apply to a few, but are many in number now.
With the help of the worst influence from TV x boxes and hand held devices, over18 content
Hence the rise of bad behaviour on the estates.
All the authority from school policemen, other families,neighbours, now afraid to chastise and educate them to changing behaviour, have removed the safety net that once safeguarded them from such upbringing.
The benefit system has played a big part in encouraging transience.
Dragged downwards certain parts and estates.

On fireworks my youngest dauggter us now in a more rural community, where tgere wasn't a real issue with fureworks.
The same rural school that was marked down for not having diversity!
As she well knows diversity clings to her parents town, either side.
Ofsted really is uneducated!
I used to take my young to the organised main park event. The years between have seen huge sums of money and ever booming noise.
Spare a thought for us none rural, town life and firework month is stressful!!!

Alan Thomas
How do we redress it?
Well as 40 year resident on this part of my town and parent and grandparent I think we need to look at what changed the kind of family that followed the rules that turned out young people who are an asset to the community they live.
The kind of parents that have been kicking against the reintroduction of school rules that were once normal.
The kind of parents who educate their young that they don't have to follow rules, will kick against any police effort to warn them that young might be heading off the rails.
That's a change a backward one.
The young whose parents live in a society whose parents do not enforce values and good behaviour.
Parents whose use of substances, leads to young being down the list of their priorities.
Parents who spend time more on tgemseles etc , or on social media out partying at the weekend while young are pushed on the street.
Big change.
The retreat of the patrolling bobby, often living on estate, who reinforced what should have been backed up from school,( schools went soft) and parent to keep communities pleasant and safe.
Operating the old, "Broken windows", system which meant young knew the rights and wrongful behaviour. Took that with them to pass onto what community they settled in.
The relaxing of alcohol laws and availability, pushed a party, club inducing lifestyle, which means police spend time picking up the fallout.
In my County it's just been announced the haul of crack cocaine is one of the biggest in the country that gets this destructive to community and family rubbish off our streets. Along with the others like cannabis that police know youngsters carry, but seemingly don't care about health consequences for them, nor get the message to them that it is criminal to use it.
You get the old warning , " If you don't set firm rules and good messages, keep giving in you make a rod for your own back"
Or in this case the good community people. Little ones get bigger everday. They then turn round and rule.
" Whose in Charge" are courses that run for parents, who have forgotten the rules.
The rise in fatherless families, means one less adukt to back up and reinforce.
The homes where a parent is helped by the state are also a draw to the sort of males, who see a nice cosy roof over their geads, money, but who are nit interestrd in welfare of the young there. Under the radar.
In my observations.

Many of your 'all-encompassing' Left (around some 50% of the Western world?) are possibly still having a quiet lie down after recently reading of your desire to see the execution of those who treat their pets in an extreme manner.

Do you ever feel you might be in some danger of putting the 'Hang 'em and Flog e'm Right' ahead of the 'Looney Left' in the 'nutters' sweepstake?

Mrs B,
"I'm afraid I think it is the retreat of warranted officers from the beat who did educate on respect and restraint to others in community, as did schools and most parents,.."

You are absolutely right. And regarding those louts who stroll arrogantly through communities with impunity having made decent people's lives intolerable; I would round them up and remove them for a short but hard spell of severe punishment so unpleasant that they would not wish to behave in such a way again.

But the Left will not allow such punishment or even anything close and so we are left in these situations of feral youngsters terrorising people. We have been forced to regard them as victims of bad homes and upbringings but never allowed to force them to take any responsibility for themselves. And they carry on and laugh at us.

Vikki b
I'm afraid I think it is the retreat of warranted officers from the beat who did educate on respect and restraint to others in community, as did schools and most parents,not just noisy house parties, but the rise in lack of ecucating with an advisory ticket first on not communuty spirited parking, youths who think they are now untouchable, causing distress and general yobby behaviour and language.
I watched news where a group of youths were throwing fireworks at police officers and firefighters. Needs sorting, now!
The call to ban would not be from restless, fed uo law abiding residents,like me, if one of the educators of society had not retreated from us folk, who see us left with no recourse.
Talking of policing. Great article by Trevor Phillips who used to be in Equality Commission, in Sunday Mail.
Headline I agree with and some things I believe I've tried to get across in my comments of the understanding of what is happening, reaching my town of once sleepy Suffolk.
Some advice to governments not heeded and like war, some of us under some great big experiment of naive politicians and leaders.
Need the calibre of policemen that used to be on our estates, to keep the Queen's peace.

Alan, "But I'm not sure just where Vikki's comment about 'freedom of speech' comes into it."

I was referring to them putting their video online. It seems this is where the problem originated and came to the attention of our PC police. However distasteful it is, I would defend their right to do so.

Mrs B, I agree with you that the use of fireworks throughout the year is tiresome and I personally think it's a shame to have made them so commonplace as it takes away the thrill of them on bonfire night.
I live in a fairly rural area with only a couple of houses a few fields away but I have always called to say I am having fireworks so they can bring their horses/dogs/cats etc under cover so to speak as I hate to scare any animals.

But whilst, as you say, people are inconsiderate, I am not a fan of banning things. I think it should be discouraged. It is our misfortune to live in a society that has been encouraged to do as they please with little regard for anyone else. Afterall it's their 'right' to do so. And neither do I like the necessary state nannying that follows such selfishness. I am uncomfortable that police knock on doors like overgrown prefects! I always think of the old adage that 'everything is allowed except that which is forbidden.' A good rule of thumb until that great raft of laws Blair brought in which (as I know I always say) Cameron promised to "roll back." And didn't.
Odd that with so many laws, we live in a less civilised society than we did before them.

Haven't seen any replies to your question yet, hence a rather late response, and a reminder that I've been asking the same question for what seems like some 10% of my later life?
I've seen many that appear to be based on 'pipe dreams', some that have hinted darkly at large boots on the ground, but nothing else that springs to mind.

The bonfire night video. As the background of these people has led to obvious exposure. Allegedly not venturing out of front door, with the shame and allegedly if what I read is correct, one seems to be a multi millionaire landlord. A bit of investigative journalism might do more than a police knock at the door.
I am concerned that in my town we were told police would be out in numbers to quell anti social behaviour.
As a recent poll on the news showed a very high percentage of people wanting the sale of fireworks to be banned from shops, sulermarkets and to just have properly organised town display. On one night would be preferable.
As it is the month of November if you live on an estate, like me can nean even with my double glazed windows closed, from front to back, to leftt and right it sounds as though we are near a war torn border.
Deep booms in the distance and then sounding nearer.
It doesnt end there, because of course they have to use fireworks up.
You get sporadic bangs thankfully my old dog is losing sight and hearing, certain pitches get through. So the telly doesn't have to be so uncomfotably high.
Your heart sinks when you go past a banner celebrating some family occasion, because it inevitably means fireworks, going on until one in the morning.
It's even worse in Summer, when you need windows open and the BBQ's begin.
Fireworks, around you, plus and as I'm female I can say it the strange rise of screechy women who sound as though they are at a shrieky children's party, but with volume increasing alcohol fuelled noise.
No longer the police around to knock on doors to warn them to the anti social behaviour and any thought of a decent time limit to respect others in community.
Sick to the back teeth and of course there's New Year and beyond.
When I see those huge fireworks in supermarkets, then being sold off cheap, I cringe.
Why in hells teeth do we want to sit through what sounds as thogh we are shelling near a frontline?

Alan, what a coincidence. I too can trace mine to a similar date and am also originally from a Kentish family!
You and I amongst many, have been reading PH's blog here for many years. I used to post under my name but with increasing demands for 'data' by the government, I think it better to be less forthcoming in this respect. It's a shame. I'm sure many of us would prefer openness. I also think there is a big difference in PH being public and the rest of us. We do not have the weight of a newspaper behind us. There's a difference.

I am sure you are right that the police (re the bonfire episode), are looking into the legal side, no doubt hoping to find some way or another to bring charges.

Peter Rhind "And why are MPs welcoming the arrests of people? I would have thought you can welcome a conviction but someone under arrest is innocent. I just don't like this."

Nor I and 'innocent until proved guilty' which has stood people in such good stead and protected them from an over zealous state, seems much diminished now. It is there but increasingly people place more legal importance on an arrest and make many assumptions until it become ps guilty until proved innocent in many minds.

William
I should think the absence of reporting of these knife crimes are due to the failed knee jerk law which was brought in under Cameron whereby if you were caught with a knife, you would go straight to gaol. Whatever happened to that!?

Well, if I've followed the gist of your post correctly, the answer to your question might be 'because it is obvious'. But I'm not sure just where Vikki's comment about 'freedom of speech' comes into it.

It might help if you stated clearly what it is that upsets you in the particular case you mention.

Vikki b
Orgasms. Faking it!
That's why it's best left to grown ups!
Perhaps like fine wine they are better with age and maturity.
Doing those muscle training exercise after childbirth are so important!!
I think biology lessons with the reproductive system are for school.
Like cookery, or needlework, or woodwork or metalwork lessons, it gives you the chance to learn more, when you've learnt how to be grown up and literate to carry on learning at your own level ...
So many adults want sexualise young before they are ready. Vested interests perhaps.

Vicky b,
Yes, I just see it as a sick joke be it a very well planned one. Hugely upsetting if you were directly involved in the fire but I cannot believe that others such as MPs and celebrities are genuinely outraged. And why are MPs welcoming the arrests of people? I would have thought you can welcome a conviction but someone under arrest is innocent. I just don't like this

The delay is possibly due to the police awaiting legal advise, although the event took place in somebody's back garden, it was the filming posted on social media that I feel is the main issue. Plus, it was a considered event that involved the production of the content that must have taken some time to put together, well before a boozy night in the garden, that might be seen as 'malice aforethought' (if that still exists!).

And then there is the lack of any editing of material that was, I assume, considered just as unacceptable as the event in the garden itself by those who reacted in horror, let alone families directly involved in that dreadful event.

Posted by: Vikki b | 09 November 2018 at 08:32 PM **Why aren't the press more on this matter?** .............. who is defending their right to free speech!?**
Seeing on news reports photos of the growing list of stabbings in London there seems to be one factor which shows an obvious correlationship between the very high percentage of victims/attackers and, the districts it occurred. I have not heard of one police report, news report mentioning the obvious. Anyone here tell me why not?

I wasn't teasing as I explained in a post that has not appeared. I use two thirds of my real name, due to having a rather rare surname. A surname which I can trace directly back to Kent in 1595, and indirectly, to the Cambridgeshire Rolls around a century earlier. Prior to that, I've no idea.

It was my family who suggested a shortened name, saving them any embarrassing questions from visitors to this site, or as you mention, unwelcome visitors to an ageing veteran of … well, all sorts of things.

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the moderator has approved them. They must not exceed 500 words. Web links cannot be accepted, and may mean your whole comment is not published.